The First Regional Forum on Food Sovereignty was held June 20, 2008, in the Piura region, organized by the Food Sovereignty Working Group. Heifer Peru played a key role before, during and after the forum. There were 200 participants, including 92 women who participated in the morning. Various farm organizations, public agencies, private organizations, media, and local and regional authorities from Piura and Lambayeque also participated.


The main goal of the forum was to increase knowledge about food sovereignty by sharing and discussing various experiences in the region, and to recognize the need to work on the issue by identifying the roles of the various local stakeholders in organizations of small farmers, public agencies, private organizations and the general public. The event also provided a forum for institutional commitments to food sovereignty in the Piura region. The forum included keynote addresses, sharing of experiences and panel discussions about food sovereignty, followed by working groups that analyzed and discussed challenges for building food sovereignty and the design of strategies and actions for participatory promotion of food sovereignty in the Piura region.

Piura is the second most populated department in Peru, and ranks second in the quintile of unsatisfied needs, according to the national Poverty Map. These figures are even higher in rural areas, especially small farm communities. This underscores the importance of making food sovereignty a priority for public and private stakeholders at the local, regional and national levels. In the past year, Heifer Peru has placed particular emphasis on work on food sovereignty in the northern zone, holding meetings on the issue. As a result of this discussion and analysis, a Piura Region Food Sovereignty Working Group has been formed, including organizations such as the IDEAS Center, the Rural Coordinating Committee (Coordinadora Rural), CIPCA, RAAA, the Regional Government of Piura-Regional Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, INCAGRO and CEPICAFÉ, which worked together to organize the First Food Sovereignty Forum, which was led by Heifer Peru.